


Diploma Equivalency

by KennaM



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Gen, Graduation, Guidance Counselors, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 14:12:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4351982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KennaM/pseuds/KennaM
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hiro had been so proud, when Tadashi graduated. Top of his class, valedictorian, accepted to four different tech schools on scholarships. He and Aunt Cass sat in the high school bleachers for hours just to listen to him give his speech and watch him get his diploma.</p><p>Hiro didn’t think he’d be following just two years later."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diploma Equivalency

Hiro slouched in the chair at the counselor’s office. He was old enough to be leaving middle school soon, and he had to try to convince his guidance counselor to let him graduate high school for good.

His feet barely reached the floor, but he kicked at it with his toes to pass the time. The counselor was out at the moment, and he wasn’t going to head back to class and try again later. If all went well here he’d never have to go back to class again. He was getting out of here.

If the counselor let him. The whole thing was stupid, he thought, with another kick at the floor. He’d taken the test already, passed it, got the highest score of that year even, but if the school district didn’t think he was ready they didn’t have to sign off on his diploma equivalency. Just because he was only 13.

Luckily, Aunt Cass had already signed off on it. He almost hadn’t told her, had already paid the test fee when he decided he had to. Tadashi was staying late for a class project and Hiro’d pulled the pamphlet out at the dinner table. Aunt Cass’s smile had widened, and she’d told him what a good idea it sounded like for next year, and he’d avoided her eyes to ask if she’d give him a ride to the testing center the next month.

He didn’t need a ride – he could take the subway. Neither of them mentioned this.

She had signed off on it though, squeezed him hard when the results came in the mail, and made something special for dinner. Hiro didn’t tell Tadashi, hadn’t even told him he was taking the equivalency test. He’d made Aunt Cass promise she wouldn’t tell Tadashi either. They sat through a meal of hot wings, chatting amiably, Tadashi having dropped his ‘so really, what’s going on?’ when it was obviously no one was giving him an answer.

Hiro told Aunt Cass he didn’t want Tadashi to know until the school district signed off on it as well, but that wasn’t the whole truth. Once the district signed off, once it was official, there just wouldn’t be any way to keep it a secret anymore. Hiro wouldn’t be going to public school anymore, and Tadashi would ask why, and Hiro would have to produce the equivalency certificate granted by the state of California declaring he’d earned his diploma.

He could see it now. Tadashi would be so proud. He’d hug his little brother, something he promised not to do as often as he could help it, probably lift him in the air like he was nine years old again, help Aunt Cass make something amazing for dinner _again_ , tell everyone he knew that his little brother had graduated high school at thirteen, then ask Hiro what he planned to do next. And Hiro would feel sick.

The guidance counselor was going to ask the same question, Hiro already knew it. Cass had asked it months ago as well, and the two teachers he’d managed to confide in, and every single website he’d visited when researching how to get out of high school early. Hiro leaned back in his chair, head bumping against the wall behind him, and sighed. _Where are you going to go now?_

Aunt Cass would say wherever he wanted. His teachers had suggested out of state universities, with the best undergrad programs available. The wall of the guidance counselor’s office was covered in brochures and pamphlets to state schools, the cheaper option for anyone who didn’t have scholarship opportunities the test proctors quietly assured him he’d have. Tadashi would casually mention that Hiro could join him at SFIT.

That wasn’t what made Hiro feel sick, thinking about where to go next. He already knew where he wanted to go next: home. To the garage tucked behind his aunt’s café, where he had everything he needed to do whatever he wanted, and no one to bother him for it. Where the only person to look over his shoulder was his brother, or occasionally his aunt, where nobody would touch his work except those who he didn’t mind touching his work. Tadashi would tell him college isn’t like that, _had_ told him college isn’t like that, but Hiro knows already that he can’t do that. Can’t free himself from one prison just to cage himself in another, where everyone else is even bigger, stronger, _older_ than before.

So he’s going to stay home. Work on his ongoing projects. Maybe even pick up some new ones, find something that can make him and the café money, wander to a different section of the library and teach himself anything he cares to learn on his own. He doesn’t need school, even one filled with other socially dubbed nerds like him.

It’s not like it was just the jocks in “tech capital of the west” San Fransokyo that made his school years hell.

No, it wasn’t the question that Hiro felt sick just thinking about. What made him feel sick was the thought of _Tadashi_ asking him. Tadashi, the genius. Tadashi, seven years older and wiser and smarter, better at sports and at making friends, and figuring out the bugs in Hiro’s programs and getting the little machine parts work together perfectly when Hiro couldn’t. Tadashi, who Hiro couldn’t help but look up to even as he got older, though the thought of his brother _knowing_ all he wanted was his approval made Hiro hide in the garage for days.

Hiro had been so proud, when Tadashi graduated. Top of his class, valedictorian, accepted to four different tech schools on scholarships. He and Aunt Cass sat in the high school bleachers for hours just to listen to him give his speech and watch him get his diploma.

Hiro didn’t think he’d be following just two years later.

The guidance counselor’s clock ticked a minute closer to the top of the hour – his scheduled appointment time – and Hiro tried to imagine how he’d tell Tadashi, when he finally had to tell him. Which would probably be that night, when Tadashi got home from working late on whatever his awesome robotics project was this semester. He’d say, ‘hey, guess what’, and try to act as nonchalant about it as possible. No big deal. We got a letter in the mail this week, guess who it was from, guess what they-

The door swung open and jerked Hiro out of his thoughts. He instantly sat up straighter, uncrossed his arms, folded them again, looked up at the counselor. She was an older woman, and he knew her fairly well from their numerous visits the past couple years. She’d helped him advance into high school as soon as he had, helped him figure out early college credits and even once, unknowingly, provided lunch-hour shelter.

“You’re here early,” she said, taking her seat. She was always to the point, which sometimes set Hiro on edge, and sometimes grounded him.

“Uh,” Hiro said, “yeah, I didn’t… uh….” He didn’t know how to end that statement, and instead his voice trailed off as his mind raced. The counselor didn’t press. She just pulled out a folder, flipped a few pages, and started reading something

“I see you got your CAHSPE results back. Congratulations.”

Hiro smiled warily. “Thanks,” he said. He couldn’t tell what she was reading but it was about him; he’d recognize his own file upside-down anywhere.

She glanced up at him for a moment before grabbing a pen from the stuffed cup on the corner of the desk. “Any thoughts on where you’re going next?” she asked, that question, and started writing something down on the page. Her signature.

“I’m… looking at options,” Hiro lied. He watched the pen’s movements closely, waiting to see how she’d respond, if she’d ask the other question, the ‘ _are you sure this is what you want to do?_ ’ question. It never came. He’d been prepared for it, and a mini speech ready in case she tried to talk him out of it, tried to get him to stay longer. She didn’t.

All she did was take the three pages she had signed, slip one back into the folder, and hold out the other two. “These are for you,” she said. She stood up, and he stood up, and stared at the pages now in his hands. Official documentation, legal proof he had fulfilled state requirements and no longer needed to attend school. He blinked.

“I don’t have to… plead my case?” he asked. “To the superintendent? Or anything?”

“Nope,” the counselor said, and she smiled, as if the very question was endearing. “We do that for you. And your aunt already stopped by yesterday, to give us the copy of your diploma, so we had all we needed.”

Hiro hadn’t told Aunt Cass to do that, hadn’t known she’d done it. He’d brought the actual diploma with him in his backpack, knowing he’d need it as evidence, and the other form signed by Aunt Cass in case they needed that too. But the paper in Hiro’s hands already had her signature on it. And she worked all day, while he was in class, so the only time she could have stopped by was during her lunch break.

Hiro wasn’t sure what to say. He could hear the halls fill with kids as first period ended, second period set to start in ten minutes. He’d expected to be here for hours. To maybe even need to go to the district office. Just like that, he was done.

“I guess I should go home then,” Hiro finally said. The guidance counselor sat back down.

“I wish you luck in your future,” she said, and she took the time to look him directly in the eye, expressing sincerity, before turning back to her work.

“Thanks,” Hiro said. He tucked the papers into his backpack, slung it sloppily onto a shoulder, and left the office.

When he got back home, just after the morning rush, when the café was the emptiest it would be until closing, Hiro was surprised to find Tadashi standing behind the counter instead of Aunt Cass. Tadashi, for his part, seemed just as surprised to see his brother as Hiro was.

“What are you still doing home?” Hiro asked, panicked.

“I don’t have class until 10:30,” Tadashi said, and with a glance at the wall clock, he added, “though I should be leaving soon. Forget about me, what are _you_ doing home?” He started untying the work apron, and his eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me you’re ditching. If Aunt Cass catches you-”

But it was Aunt Cass who cut him off, coming out of the downstairs café kitchen with a smile when she recognized her nephew. “Hiro!” she said, “how did it go? What did the counselor say?”

Hiro glanced between his aunt, who was watching him expectantly, and his brother, who was watching him suspiciously. The sick feeling started to grow in his stomach. He could lie; lying came easily. Say he was feeling sick or school had been canceled, or anything. Tadashi wouldn’t believe him but it would buy Hiro time, while Tadashi rushed off to his college classes for the day, to think of a something that wouldn’t be hard for him to say.

But taking those papers as they were handed to him had been easy, too. Taking that test, getting Aunt Cass’s approval, opening the envelope as it came in the mail. Leaving high school for good. Surprisingly easy.

Hiro swallowed against the clamping in his throat, faked a smile, and reached into his backpack for the diploma.

**Author's Note:**

> I got my diploma equivalency in Southern California when I was 17 but that was forever ago so I can't remember much about the procedure, so I took some creative liberties.


End file.
